Emerging players put their hands up in Pacific Rugby Cup

The Argentina Pampas XV did not have a competition game on the weekend, but the NSW Colts Under 20 training squad gave them a solid warm-up game last Saturday at the TG Millner ground, the home of Eastwood Rugby.

This worked in well with the NSW Colts training and selection process also because, as mentioned in a Green and Gold Rugby article in January, the NSW Colts team will be competing in a National Under 20 Competition in Canberra next month.

After training since the end of last year the NSW Colts’ hopefuls have been playing in selection matches and this was the third trial that the boys had played in.

But they weren’t playing against a team of Argentina Under 20 players: the Pampas XV were the best players resident in Argentina and not many were eligible for Under 20s.

As mentioned: seven of the Pampas XV were Puma test players—scrumhalf Tomas Cubelli, flanker Tomas de la Vega, lock Tomas Lavanini, centre Matias Orlando, fullback Roman Miralles, winger Santiago Cordero (the newest Puma, who debuted against England on their 2013 end-of-year tour), and hooker Matias Cortese who debuted in 2005.

Against the seasoned veterans, half of the NSW Colts played the Pampas XV in the first 40 minutes.  At the half-time break they gave their jerseys to squad members who were playing in the second half.

The first-half Colts team, with more players in it likely to be selected for Canberra than the second half team, performed well against the Pampas XV for whom the seven Pumas played 40 minutes.

The Colts were on their roller skates for the first scrum, and a couple more afterwards, but they settled down.

The Pampas XV looked threatening when they had a scrum not too far out from the NSW Colts goal-line.  Flanker Jack Dempsey intercepted the pass from scrummie Cubelli and was off, but was called back for not keeping his bind.

The Argies were held up over the line later and scored after the five-metre scrum.  Then they kicked a penalty goal which was followed by a break from winger Cordero on the right hand side.  He sliced through the Colts’ defenders diagonally and scored on the left hand side.  The Pampas XV was 15-0 ahead and the Colts were not firing too many shots.

Then 13. Ben Gallagher made a break for the Colts and when he attracted tacklers he gave a nice pass to fullback Harry Jones who finished off and scored.  15-5.

The Pumas XV struck back with a try from a kick through after a scrum to make the score 20-5.

Things looked bad for the Colts until replacement scrumhalf Angus Pulver picked up a ball not collected properly from a Pampas XV scrum and and scored under the posts from fair way out.

The Colts were behind only 20-12 at the break and must have been happy with their shift as they gave their mates their jerseys to wear in the second half.

The Pumas test players came on for the second half too but the rest of the pack were younger and lighter.  Later the test players went to the bench.

The second half Colts team was not quite at the same standard of the first half team and they struggled.  Strangely they did better when the test players were on the field than when they left, as they leaked try after try especially in the fourth quarter of the game.  Some of the Pampas XV tries were scored by some thrilling rugby that had nippy backs scoring in either corner of the field.

The Colts of the second half went down 37-0, but they would have learned a lot in 40 minutes.

The Argentina Pampas XV will play it’s first competition game in the PRC against the ACT A side at Duntroon Military College on Sunday March 2nd.

Ex-Waratah Tim Rapp, the recently appointed coach of the NSW Colts team (and doubling as the Gen Blue coach) was happy about the high level of football the youngsters had to play.

We were looking for physicality and a willingness to get involved in the heavy stuff against some big boys.

Rapp said the NSW Colts will be reduced to about 35 players for their  last two matches and the final squad of 28  for the Canberra tournament will be chosen after that.

See below for gallery of photos NSW Colts Under 20s v Pampas XV

All photos in blog by Lee Grant